


Unorthodox Methods

by Deastar



Category: Supernatural, White Collar
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:39:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deastar/pseuds/Deastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from original premise of SPN – Sam goes to law school and eventually joins the FBI, where he gets assigned as Peter’s probie, and the New York FBI office staff are amused, and eventually, slightly traumatized</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unorthodox Methods

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted Aug. 22, 2010.
> 
> Also available as an awesome [podfic](http://reena-jenkins.livejournal.com/79104.html) by reena_jenkins!

It’s not that Peter’s nervous. Because he’s not.

It’s just that… look, when he and Neal first came to this agreement, the whole team was there to watch it happen – Diana and Cruz and Jones were there from the start, so they understood why Neal was worth trusting, and why Peter gave him such a long leash. They _got_ it, because they’d lived through it.

But Peter’s got a reputation in the Bureau as an guy who’s good with probies – someone who can turn them into agents, not just kids playing cops and robbers with real guns – so now that Diana’s a full-fledged agent, they’re shipping him a new kid. And he’s arriving today.

“Agent, uh… Burke?” a deep voice says.

Peter looks up from the paperwork on his desk… and up… and up.

“I’m Sam Winchester,” the giant says, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

“Sam, good to meet you,” Peter says, getting up from the desk to shake the kid’s hand. “Call me Peter. Did you find the place all right?”

Sam laughs. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

“I guess so,” Peter admits. “So have a seat, tell me a little about yourself.”

For some reason, that makes the kid look a little nervous, but he sits down across the desk from Peter and clears his throat, starting, “Well, I went to Stanford for both my undergrad and my J.D. I worked in the criminal prosecution clinic, and I was the editor of the _Stanford Journal of Civil_ —“

“I mean something that’s _not_ in your file,” Peter interrupts, trying not to roll his eyes. “You have brothers, sisters?”

“One brother,” Sam says quietly, and Peter waits for him to go on, but he doesn’t.

_Okay_ , Peter figures, _family’s maybe not such a good icebreaker._

“You know anybody in New York yet?” he asks instead, but—

“Peter!” Neal materializes in the door, looking natty as always – he’s wearing one of those ridiculous hats again, and a wide grin. “Cruz told me the most _fascinating_ thing in the car on the way here—”

He breaks off, and looks at Sam, who jumped to his feet the minute Neal walked in.

Peter sighs, and makes the introductions. “Neal, this is Sam Winchester, our new probie. Sam, this is Neal Caffrey. He’s a… consultant.”

“Neal Caffrey?” Sam repeats, looking back and forth between them. “Not… the Neal Caffrey we read about at Quantico? With the Death Mask of Hatshepsut… and the, uh, Three Palaces robbery, and the forged—”

“I can’t take sole credit for the Three Palaces,” Neal says modestly, “I had a lot of help,” and Peter holds his breath, because this would be the moment when it either all goes to hell, or—

“Wow, what a cool idea, to have you helping out!” Sam enthuses, shaking Neal’s hand to within an inch of its life. “I can’t wait to see you in action!”

“Uh…” Neal says, blinking.

Sam looks confused. “What’s wrong? Did I—”

Peter tries to explain.

“Some people in the Bureau… aren’t thrilled about our office’s arrangement with Neal. They’re not big fans of, uh… unorthodox methodology.”

“Oh,” says Sam. His face is serious and his eyes meet Neal’s when he says, “That’s their loss, then.”

Neal smiles at Sam, who returns the smile.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he promises, looking first at Neal, then over at Peter – there’s some kind of private joke in the quirk of the kid’s eyebrows, but Peter doesn’t know what it is. “I am all over unorthodox methodology. Trust me.”

*

_One month later…_

Peter stares at the disintegrating body of the… thing.

Neal stares at the disintegrating body of the… thing.

Eventually, Neal coughs and says, “So when you said you were all over unorthodox methodology, you weren’t kidding.”

Peter ignores him and turns to Sam.

“So let me get this straight,” he says, with infinite patience. “The CEO was actually some kind of… thing, wearing the real CEO’s body—”

“Yes, sir,” Sam says nervously. “A fiend, sir.”

“A fiend,” Peter deadpans. “Of course. How could I have missed that?”

Sam looks, if possible, even more awkward.

“A fiend,” Peter repeats, like he’s testing the word out. “Which you killed with… a water balloon.”

“A _holy_ water balloon,” Sam corrects.

Peter gives himself a minute to digest that. “A holy water balloon.”

“Yessir.”

Peter sighs. “Do I want to know what happened to the missing employees?”

Sam winces, and says, “Probably not, sir.”

“Short version?” Peter says wearily.

“He, uh, ate them. Sir.”

“Stop calling me sir,” Peter says, scowling. “He ate them. Jesus. How do I put _that_ on the report?”

“A corporate structure that _literally_ devours its employees,” Neal murmurs, looking at Sam. “It’s kind of genius, if you think about it.”

“Oh, definitely,” Sam says, warming to the subject. “I mean, fiends are usually low-level scavengers – when you think about the long-term planning that must have gone into this—”

“Exactly!” Neal gives Sam an admiring, wide-eyed look. “I mean, how did you even figure it out? That’s a hell of a counterintuitive leap!”

Sam blushes. “Well, it’s all about doing the research,” he says, diffidently, but as he starts to explain his logic to Neal, Peter is stuck trying to figure out why he feels so… disgruntled. They solved the case, the bad guy is done for, and right about when he and Neal would normally be sharing the high of closing a tough case by the skin of their teeth—

“Wow,” Neal says, shaking his head as he listens to Sam. “Just wow. That is amazing.”

Peter sighs and trudges back to the car to start on the impossible paperwork.

*

Peter tugs at the doorknob and swears.

“It’s locked!” he yells over his shoulder. “We don’t have much time.”

“I can pick it,” Neal says, kneeling down at Peter’s feet to peer into the lock. “Just let me get my—Dammit!”

He looks up at Peter, frustrated. “I don’t have my tools. Thanks to _someone_ who thought it would be hilarious to—”

“Here,” Sam says, thrusting a black cloth packet at Neal.

Neal whistles as he unrolls it, and admires the sleek row of silver tools gleaming against the fabric.

“Thanks for the loan,” he says, grinning and holding up one of the smaller picks.

“The door, Neal,” Peter insists.

“Oh, seriously, no, thank _you_ ,” Sam says, smiling warmly. “After everything we read about you in training, the thought of _Neal Caffrey_ using _my_ lockpicks is—”

“Got it,” Neal exclaims triumphantly – he and Sam share a grin.

Sam picks up one of his monstrous giant feet and kicks the door in.

*

Peter pokes his head into Diana’s office.

“What’s up, Peter?” she asks, setting a file down on her desk.

“When you were my probie,” he starts, hesitantly.

“Yeah?”

“Did you think I was… a loser?”

Diana thinks about that for a minute.

“I still have extra copies of the mustache picture—” she starts.

“Oh, that’s not fair!” Peter yells.

*

“I can do this,” Neal insists. “She’ll talk to me.”

The three of them stare at the forbidding Gothic door of the forbidding Gothic house.

“Come on, Peter,” he pushes, but Peter can see that Neal’s uneasy about it, and if the woman inside is as crazy as they’ve heard she is, he’s not risking Neal in there alone.

“I’ll go with you,” Sam says suddenly.

Neal shakes his head and starts to say something, but Sam cuts him off.

“You know City Boy-Country Boy?”

Neal sits back on his heels a little, looking puzzled.

“Yeah, that’s a classic two-man con, everybody knows—”

He pauses, and narrows his eyes at Sam dubiously.

“You? Really?”

Sam shrugs. “It can’t hurt to try.”

They do better than try.

When Neal is back safe in the car – and don’t think it didn’t drive Peter crazy with worry, standing outside that creepy old house for an hour, not knowing what the hell was going on inside – he cranes his head around to look at Sam in the back seat.

“If I didn’t know better,” Neal says, “I’d say you’d done that before.”

“If you didn’t know better,” Sam agrees.

“You must have had a hell of a partner,” Neal comments idly, still watching Sam closely.

Sam turns to look out the car window.

“Yeah,” he says. “Must have.”

*

“Honey?” Peter says into the phone, knowing this is a mistake, and totally unable to put a stop to it. “Am I… am I still cool?”

With her disturbingly psychic-like powers of intuition, Elizabeth says sympathetically, “Oh, sweetheart. Neal still likes you best.”

“I wasn’t talking about Neal,” Peter lies, but he’s not fooling anybody.

“…also?” Elizabeth says, obviously trying not to laugh, “I think, in order to _still_ be cool, you do have to have actually been cool in the first place, so…”

“I was totally cool,” Peter mutters. “Some time. Maybe in college. For at least a month.”

*

They’re walking toward the warehouse when Sam gets a call on his cell phone. He takes a look at the screen and something a little strange comes over his face.

“I’ve gotta take this,” he says, with an apologetic grimace.

Peter and Neal cool their heels while Sam has a terse conversation with whoever is on the other end of the phone call – and, Peter is interested to notice, very carefully does _not_ look at the black classic car parked down the block, too far away to get a license plate number.

Sam puts the phone down and turns to Peter.

“It’s, uh… it’s taken care of,” he says, ducking his head uncomfortably.

Irritably, Peter narrows his eyes and says, “What does that mean, ‘it’s taken care of,’ huh?”

“This was _my_ kind of case,” Sam says, stressing the word _my_ , and staring at Peter hopefully until Peter nods his understanding.

“Okay,” Peter says, with as much patience as he can, “this is your kind of case, as in a ‘things I can never actually put in my report’ kind of case. But that still doesn’t explain why it’s ‘taken care of.’”

Neal says, unexpectedly, “There’s a whole world out there, isn’t it? Of people like you. People with very specialized skills, who live outside of the law. And one of them just happened to get here first.”

“Yeah,” Sam says quietly. “That’s it exactly.”

“Believe me,” says Neal, with a small smile, “I know all about that.”

When Peter looks up the block, the black car is gone.

*

When Jones sees Peter walk into his office, he shakes his head immediately, and says, “Respectfully, I’ve got to tell you that if this is another thing where you try and get somebody who works for you make you feel better about Caffrey’s crush on Andre the Giant, I am just not comfortable with that. No offense, Peter.”

“You think Neal has a crush on the probie?” Peter asks, eyes wide.

“We’re not talking about this,” Jones says firmly, steering Peter out of his office and shutting the door in his face.

“A crush?” Peter says weakly.

*

Peter walks in the front door and tosses his keys in the basket with a heavy sigh. He wishes El were home. He shrugs off his coat and hangs it in the closet, then freezes at the sudden sound of the lock in the front door clicking as it slides home.

“This is an intervention,” a familiar voice says, and when Peter shuts the closet door, there’s Neal, hat at a jaunty angle as usual. He looks amused, not angry, so Peter just tilts his head and waits it out.

“An intervention?” he asks.

“An intervention,” Neal confirms, nodding vigorously.

Peter crosses his arms. “And who decided that I need this intervention?”

“I did.” Neal crosses his arms, too, mirroring Peter’s posture. “What is your problem with Sam Winchester?”

Peter takes a deep breath and tries to explain. “When he got assigned to the office, I was worried that he wouldn’t understand about… about you, and why we need you, and all the good things you do,” he says awkwardly. “Because he was on the outside. But it turns out he understands better than… better than me, I guess,” Peter mumbles, looking at the ground. “So I guess that’s great – I mean, it is great, I wouldn’t want him to give you any trouble – but it turns out, it’s not very much fun being on the outside,” he finishes, with a weak smile.

Neal just watches Peter for a minute, a small smile hovering around the corners of his mouth.

“You’re jealous,” he says, and then, with a big grin, “You’re jealous!” he crows.

“I am not jealous,” Peter tries to say, but Neal doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise.

“You don’t have to be jealous,” Neal says, his big blue eyes solemn and sincere. “It _is_ true that Sam is younger and taller and better-looking and in better shape than you, and that he kind of worships me and doesn’t make fun of my hats, which is something you might want to look into, actually—”

Peter’s worked up a pretty impressive glare by this point, but then he catches the hint of a grin in the corners of Neal’s eyes, and he gets it.

“You’re messing with me,” he says, shaking his head and trying not to smile.

“You caught me, Peter,” says Neal, and he’s smiling for real now, but he’s serious, too – Peter can hear it in his voice. “You caught me,” he repeats, voice low, “so I’m yours.”

It’s kind of embarrassing, what those words, in Neal’s voice, do to Peter – he blushes furiously, but Neal just laughs and wraps his arms around Peter’s neck, meeting his eyes from a bare inch away.

“You’re in my space,” Peter points out, feeling stupid as soon as he says it.

Neal rolls his eyes. “You like me in your space.”

“I—don’t—I mean—what?”

“Also,” Neal tells Peter, “Sam’s fiancée, Jess, would probably kill me – she’s a chemistry teacher, and she’s very nice, but she doesn’t like me as much as Elizabeth does, and she knows how to make explosives.”

Peter reflects on that. “I can’t wait to meet her,” he decides.

“You have to be nicer to Sam from now on.” Neal’s trying to look stern, but the twinkle in his eyes ruins it. “He thinks you’re secretly planning to kill him and bury his body in the basement archives.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Peter protests. “How could you think I would do that? Everybody knows we bury the annoying probies _out back_ , underneath the smoking patio.”

He holds his straight face for almost a full twenty seconds before Neal’s eye-roll sends him over the edge, and he cracks up.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t try it, if I were you,” Neal warns. “If you think Sam’s _fiancée_ is scary, you should meet his brother. I think he might take it kind of personally if you killed Sam.”

Peter is about to ask Neal what he’s talking about, but then there are more interesting things to do than talk, and he lets it go.

*

He doesn’t forget about it, though – in the office the next day, he does some digging and then sits back in his chair for a long minute, staring at the files on his computer screen and on his desk.

Then he picks up the phone and calls St. Louis.

“Agent Peter Burke from the FBI here – can I speak with Captain Bell?”

Peter can tell that Bell thinks he’s lost it, but she owes him and she knows it, so she sighs and promises to look into the 2005 Dean Winchester murders, and see if she can dig up any alternate evidence.

A week later, she calls him back, sounding shaken – she doesn’t think he’s crazy anymore, that’s for sure.

“Whatever is in the coffin that was supposed to hold Dean Winchester’s body,” she tells him, voice uneven, “the medical examiner says he’s pretty damn sure it’s not Dean Winchester, and it may not even be human. But all the officers who were part of the SWAT team, and the detectives on the case swear that the man that killed those women ended up in that coffin – and there’s something funny about some of the other evidence, too. One of the key witnesses swore at the time that Winchester had nothing to do with it, and she’s sticking with her story, so—”

“So you think Dean Winchester might be in the clear,” Peter says, trying not to sound as hopeful as he is – Bell can read between the lines just fine, though.

“I’ll do what I can,” she says, and five weeks later, Peter calls Sam into his office.

“I thought you might be interested to read this,” Peter says, tossing a file across the desk.

Sam picks it up, and almost as soon as the file is open, he’s looking up at Peter with something caught halfway between wariness and relief.

“Sir?” he says.

Peter sighs. “Your brother is still technically dead, even though they’re pretty sure now that the thing in the coffin isn’t him. But if your brother were, hypothetically, to be alive, he wouldn’t have any outstanding warrants. Hypothetically.”

Sam closes his eyes for a minute, and when he opens them again, the gratitude on his face is painful.

“I didn’t even think you _liked_ me,” he blurts.

Peter winces. “I had some personal things to work out.”

Sam thinks about that for a minute, then says, “Sir, Neal really likes you a lot, and—”

“Good talk!” Peter declares, jumping up from his chair. “Anyway, I’ll keep you updated if I hear anything more from St. Louis. In the meantime, I hope your hypothetical brother enjoys the good news.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Sam, unfolding himself from the chair and heading for the door, holding his brother’s file like it might vanish if he lets it go.

“Oh, and Sam?” Peter adds, just as Sam opens the door. “If you had a brother, you could tell him that, hypothetically… he has a _really_ nice car.”

“Oh, trust me, sir… he knows.” Sam grins. “Hypothetically.”

The door shuts behind him when he leaves.


End file.
